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Foundations of Communication
What communication is for, why clarity and simplicity differ, and why a message must be delivered far more often than feels necessary.
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01
Repetition Is Not Condescension
The point at which a leader is thoroughly sick of saying something is roughly the point at which the organization has begun to hear it. The two experiences are not comparable and cannot be…
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02
Register: Formal, Plain, and When Each Fails
Register signals what kind of event this is. Getting it wrong tells people something about the situation that you did not intend, and they will trust the signal over the content.
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03
Read the Room Before You Choose the Words
Three questions decide the message: who is present, what each of them can act on, and what will be repeated afterward. The third is the one leaders forget and the one that carries furthest.
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04
Clarity and Simplicity Are Different
Simplifying a complex thing can destroy the information inside it. Clarity preserves the structure and removes the obstruction, which is harder and is what the situation usually requires.
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05
What Communication Is For
Before choosing words, decide which of four things you are doing. Most failures are a message doing one job while the audience believes it is doing another.